Young defender can grasp chance

Eric Nicolson highlights some key factors for tonight’s first leg tie at McDiarmid Park:

GOLDEN OPPORTUNITY: There are plenty of seasoned Scottish Premiership footballers who go a career without playing in Europe. For whoever gets the nod out of Liam Gordon, Jason Kerr and Ally Gilchrist to partner Joe Shaughnessy at the heart of the Saints defence tonight, this is a potentially career-changing opportunity. Play well and the young man given a start will be back in for the return leg in Lithuania and, hopefully, the second qualifying round after that. Stevie May made his name with Saints in Europe. Could it be Gordon, Kerr or Gilchrist this time around?

0-0 IS OK: Saints have struggled at times against defensive-minded teams at McDiarmid Park and nobody is expecting FK Trakai to come out with all guns blazing. The difference for the Perth men on this occasion is they don’t need to score. Yes, they would like a lead to take to the second leg in Vilnius next week, and yes, they’d like to put on a show for a big crowd. But the bigger picture is all important. If it’s 0-0, so be it. Time and again that proves to be enough for the home team in a European first leg.

SCOUGALL EXPECTATIONS: Saints fans shouldn’t be expecting a performance from Stefan Scougall resembling peak Danny Swanson. It isn’t even guaranteed that he will start tonight. Scougall is an extremely talented footballer but even Swanson took time to bed into the team.

MOTIVATED MACLEAN: The main man on the big occasion for Saints has so often been Steven MacLean. Motivated by the fact he can’t play in the second leg due to FK Trakai’s artificial pitch, the smart money will be on a man of the match performance from the veteran striker again.

LET BATTLE COMMENCE AGAIN: Another season, another tough choice of goalkeeper for Tommy Wright. It’s been said plenty of times before, but the McDiarmid Park boss is blessed to have Alan Mannus and Zander Clark vying to start. Both will get their chance over the course of the campaign but both will be disappointed if they don’t get first dibs. Rather Wright than me!